COVID-19 Research News

Director of Duke Human Vaccine Institute on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and what comes next

Dr. Barton Haynes received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday with the confidence of a researcher who has spent his entire career studying the science of vaccines.

A flurry of activity surrounded Faye Williams as she signed form after form. Dressed in her Duke blue scrubs and wearing her lucky pearls, she sat patiently as she and those around her prepared to make history in a Searle Center conference room at Duke. 

Williams was the first of 12 Duke employees to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Duke Health System. For her, it was a moment of personal health, professional safety and communal responsibility.

With multiple COVID-19 vaccines on the way in the United States, public health officials now face the daunting challenge of convincing skeptics to actually get the vaccine.

Three Duke experts in public health messaging, leadership and human behavior spoke with journalists Thursday in a virtual media briefing about challenges and solutions.

Replay the briefing on YouTube.

Study confirms bats adopt multiple strategies to reduce pro-inflammatory responses, thus mitigating potential immune-mediated tissue damage and disease. Findings provide important insights for medical research on human diseases.

Bats act as reservoirs of numerous zoonotic viruses, including SARS-CoV, MERS CoV, Ebola virus, and—most likely—SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen behind the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. However, the molecular mechanisms bats deploy to tolerate pathogenic viruses has remained unclear.

A team of Duke University researchers has developed a lab-grown living lung model that mimics the tiny air sacs of the lungs where coronavirus infection and serious lung damage take place. This advance has enabled them to watch the battle between the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and lung cells at the finest molecular scale.

The 2020 flu season is upon us and like many, we have questions and concerns. We talked to Duke Human Vaccine Institute investigator, Tony Moody, MD for answers.

Dr. Tony Moody is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases and the Department of Immunology at Duke University Medical Center. He also serves as the director of the Duke CIVICs Vaccine Center (DCVC) at DHVI and co-director of the Centers for Research of Emerging Infectious Disease Coordinating Center (CREID-CC).

Trio of Duke experts address threat of a 'twindemic' and development of a COVID vaccine

Not sure whether to get a flu shot this year?

The flu has similar symptoms to COVID-19, and while you don’t want either virus, you certainly don’t want both, three Duke vaccine experts said Friday in urging people to seek out the flu vaccine as it becomes available this fall.

Speaking to reporters in a virtual media briefing, the three scientists discussed flu season, the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, and why public trust in vaccines is so critical.

Like nearly all other aspects of life, the normal routines of Duke research labs came to a grinding halt due to COVID-19. Duke researchers shared their reflections on the struggles and insights the process of research shutdown and reboot has had within their labs during a Virtual Research Town Hall on Thursday, September 3rd.

COVID-19 has stripped control and predictability from us. We can’t do the things we want, and we aren’t sure when this mess is going to end.

So we’re anxious and depressed and overwhelmed. Many of us are trying to work and parent and keep households running. Many of us are “essential,” which means we have to work in public, putting our health at risk.

It’s a lot to deal with, but there are ways to cope, help others, and shepherd our kids to the other side of all of this.

Students returning to Duke University are participating in surveillance testing to help rapidly identify and isolate people who may have contracted the COVID-19 virus. This is done using pool testing, which combines nasal samples from five people for a single test to allow more testing using fewer resources. If a pooled test comes back positive, each student in that sample will be tested individually to identify who has contracted the virus and follow through with any isolation procedures.